Jeff Becker

He felt that the American people had a right to drink beer
without the federal government putting a punitive tax on it.

Jeff was a lobbyist, and that has a negative connotation to
it these days.

But Jeff represented the best of the lobbyist profession.
And the millions of beer drinkers who think they pay enough in taxes and don’t think
they should pay a beer tax to an out-of-control federal government should be
happy that they had a lobbyist as dogged and as determined as Jeff Becker.

Jeff died yesterday at home after a long bout with cancer.
He was a great family man, an unbelievably talented golfer, a great
joke-teller, and an all around stand-up guy.

Jeff didn’t put up with a lot of bull. He wasn’t one of
those slick guys everybody loves to hate outside the Beltway. He was a beer
guy, and he had friends around the country and around the globe, because not
only was he a beer guy, he was a guy’s guy.

That he was a good golfer is an understatement. He had the
kind of easy swing that makes hackers like me very envious. But he never made
you feel bad about having an inferior swing, except at the end of the round,
when you had to pay up.

Becker’s fight to keep the federal government off the backs
of beer drinkers may seem trivial, but it is not. As we have seen with the
Obama administration’s plan to force people to buy healthcare, left unchecked,
the government will go to any lengths to control how the citizens of this
country live their lives.

In one sense, Becker was fighting to stop the beer tax. In a
bigger sense, he was fighting to keep the American people free from oppressive
government.

Some may think of Becker as just another lobbyist. I saw him
as a protector of our liberty.

Like many of his legions of friends, I will miss Jeff
Becker. I will miss his jokes. I will miss his easy smile. I will miss playing
golf with him. And I will miss his passionate defense of the Beer industry.

My deepest sympathies go out to his wife Brenda, his son Max
and his daughter Megan.